• Jungle Jim’s – Friday night tasting from 5:00 to 9:00 pm at both locations. Pints are usually $3. This week, they are pouring beers from Tröegs at Fairfield and beers from Arbor Brewing at Eastgate.

• Party Source – $1 beer tastings on Saturday from 12:00-1:00 pm.

• Party Town – For Friday Night Flights this week from 5:30-7:00 pm, they’re pouring from Stone. It’s $2.00 for the regular sample flights. Only adults age 21 or more are admitted for Friday Night Flights. Limit of one sample per person. No shopping carts in the back room please.

TAPPINGS and RELEASES

• BC’s Bottle Lodge – Northwest Fifty West Saturday at 11:00 am. Beers include 50 West TRIPA, Main Street Amber, One Way Street Citra SMaSH, One Way Street Mosaic SMaSH and Echo Summit.

Thursday, Sept. 15th from 11:00am-11:00 pm – Taft’s Birthday Bash and Bottle Release at Taft’s Ale House
Food specials, release of a new barrel-aged beer in bottles and tapping of the first keg of the Independent; an exciting limited release ale! Brewed and barrel-aged in Remus bourbon barrels for over a year, the Independent includes fresh vanilla beans, cacao nibs and Columbian coffee.

Thursday, Sept. 15th from 5:00-8:00 pm – Saved By The Bell’s Takeover at Keystone Clifton
Beers include The Oracle, Two-Hearted Ale, Best Brown, and Oberon.

Friday, Sept. 16th at 1:00 pm – Streetcar Brewery Tasting Tour
Join Cincy Brew Bus on a “a guided tour of Cincinnati’s Downtown and Over The Rhine Craft Brewery Scene we will go to Taft’s Ale House at 1pm do a tasting and a tour, head over to Moerlein Lager House for a Tasting, and then finish up at Rhinegeist for a Tour and a Tasting. Beer is included in the price as well as your day pass for the streetcar, you get to keep. Stops 8, 1 and 11 on the Streetcar Route.” Tickets are $35 for drinkers and $20 for non-drinkers. Click on the link above to purchase your tickets.

Friday, Sept. 16th at 6:30 pm – Malts in Ault at Ault Park
Tickets for twenty tastes are $25 through September 13th, $30 thereafter. Buy them now at the Ault Park Advisory Council web site. We will have the complete beer list for you on our Friday Tastings and Tappings Report.

Friday, Sept. 16th-Sunday, Sept. 18th – Überdrome next to Moerlein Lager House
Check out their Facebook event page for more information.

Check out our Better Beer Happy Hours, Etc. page for regularly scheduled specials on better beer. We are only list events here that are unique for this coming week in beer. As always, any edited listing will have UPDATE at the beginning of the listing.

Wednesday, Sept. 7th from 5:00-10:00 pm – Charitable Suds at Rhinegeist
Co-hosted by Cincinnati Public Radio, a portion of the proceeds during the happy hour will be donated to the Brewery District CURC.

Thursday, Month Day from 5:00-10:00 pm – New Belgium Pint Night at Cappy’s Wines and Spirits
Beers include Fat Tire, Citradelic, Pumpkick, Tart Lychee, Fruit Fly and Oscar Worthy Coffee Nitro. Food available from Packhouse Meats and each New Belgium pint purchase gets you entered to win a limited edition New Belgium bike.

Thursday, Sept. 8th at 7:00 pm – Bell’s End of Summer Blow Out at Gypsys
Poolside, Oberon, and Oatsmobile on draft for $3 pints.

Friday, Sept. 9th-Saturday, Sept. 10th – Cincy Beerfest on Fountain Square
Unlike the Cincy Winter Beerfest, this festival is a free admission/pay as you drink model. However, if you buy the Advance VIP deal, you get more tickets and access to 20 VIP only beers and the VIP area behind the stage with bathrooms. Purchase your tickets online at https://www.beerfesttickets.com/eventperformances.asp?evt=79.

We frequently get updates for our Tastings and Tappings Report after our regular publishing time. Any edited listing will have UPDATE at the beginning of the listing. Don’t forget to check out our This Week in Beer post from Monday for other better beer events happening this weekend.

FESTIVALS

● 2015 Beer Wine and Food Festival – Friday, August 28th starting at 5:00 pm in Wyoming, OH (benefits The Cure Starts Now Foundation) – See their Facebook Event Page for more information.

● Germania Society Oktoberfest – Friday, August 28th-Sunday, August 30th – See their Facebook Event Page for more information.

● Everything’s d’ Vine – Tasting is at 5:30 pm each week and costs $10 for beer and wine tastings. You can get just beer or just wine for $5.00. The beers for this week’s tasting (8/28) are Left Hand Oktoberfest, Great Divide Whitewater, Tröegs Perpetual IPA and Full Pint Night of the Living Stout.

● Jungle Jim’s – Friday night tasting from 5:00 to 9:00 pm at both locations. Pints are usually $3. This week, they are pouring beers from GoodWood Brewing Co.

● Ludlow Wines – Saturday beer tasting is from 5:00-8:00 pm. The cost to taste four beers is $6.00 per person.

● Party Town – For Friday Night Flights this week (8/28) from 5:30-7:00 pm, it’s new beers and seasonals from Victory, Prairie, Rhinegeist and more. The draft by the glass will be Three Floyds Moloko Milk Stout for $3.00. The cost for the flight is $2.00 per person. Only adults age 21 or more are admitted for Friday Night Flights.

● Whole Foods Cincinnati – Cask & Cork: Beer and Wine every Friday from 5:00 to 7:00 pm. For $5, you get five sips and six bites. Tickets sold until 6:30 pm.

Saturday, Sept. 27th from 5:00-8:00pm – Beer Tasting at Ludlow Wines
The cost to taste four beers is $6.00 per person.

Saturday, Sept. 27th at 6:00 pm – Barks, Bourbon, & Brews at New Riff Distillery
From Facebook: Enjoy distillery tours, dinner by the bite, and local bourbon and beer with a panoramic view of the city. Proceeds benefit the dogs of Circle Tail and the people whose lives they change. Purchase tickets at http://circletail.net/index.php?page=barks-bourbon-brews

The “Überdrome,” Cincinnati’s most authentic Munich style fest tent, returns to the Event Lawn adjacent to the Moerlein Lager House on the banks of the Ohio River for Oktoberfest Zinzinnati weekend.

The Uberdrome will be open on Friday, September 19 from 5 p.m. until midnight and on Saturday, September 20, 1 p.m. to midnight during Oktoberfest weekend.

This year admission to the entire Uberdrome is free and open to the public, offering entertainment and atmosphere with German-style food prepared by the Moerlein Lager House. The menu includes Oktoberfest Rotisserie Chicken and Traditional German favorites along with freshly brewed Christian Moerlein crafted beers onsite. Paulaner original Munich Oktoberfest beers will also be available.

In addition this year, Wiesnkoenig USA, a German-themed lifestyle clothing brand and the officially licensed supplier of Lederhosen for the Munich Oktoberfest, will offer a fashion show each day.

The Moerlein Lager House menu for the Uberdrome includes pretzels and beer cheese, Beer Baron brats, half Oktoberfest Rotisserie Chickens, barbeque pork sandwiches with slaw, and grilled sausages with sauerkraut. Sides include Sauerkraut balls, German potato salad, angry macaroni and cheese, with cream puffs and apple and cherry strudel for dessert.

Scheduled entertainment for the Uberdrome includes on Friday, Alpine Echoes from 6 p.m. until 11 p.m.; Saturday, Alpine Echoes from 1:30 p.m. until 5 p.m. and Prost from 6 p.m. until 11 p.m.

I work in market research, so I often spend way too much time thinking of why products are priced and how they are priced and what the impact of that pricing is.* Beer is no exception, and this weekend’s Oktoberfest Zinzinnati presents a particularly fun situation. Beware:your idea of fun may vary substantially. While there are a few exceptions, in general, the prices for beers at Oktoberfest are thus:

Regular: $5 for 16 ounces

Large: $11 for 24 ounce souvenir mug (w/beer)

Refills: $7 for 24 ounces

Which leads me to the question: does it make financial sense to “invest” in the large souvenir mug? See figure 1 below.

The break-even point is $60 and 192 ounces (12 pints) of beer. Strictly on a ‘ounce for your dollar’ basis, if you’re going to spend less than $60 and drink fewer than 12 pints of beer the regular makes more financial sense. Imbibe more than that, the large mug starts to pay off. However, this ignores the fact that you get to keep the souvenir mug, and that may be of some value to you (and it certainly cost the organizers some money to get made).

Still, for years I made the argument that for most people it didn’t make financial sense to buy the mug. But this year I reevaluated things and saw there’s another side to this. You, savvy reader, have probably already figured this out: sticking with the regular size means having to fill ‘er up more often. Below shows the purchase frequency as spending increases.

Beer lines can get long late in the evening, and having to fill up more often can be a pain. The large mug reduces how often you have to go back for more.

So, what’s a fiscally responsible beer drinker to do?

Why to go with the Small: you’re only having a few beers and/or you want to try a greater variety of different beers.Why to go with the Large Mug: you’re drinking more than a few beers, you don’t want to go back to the beer line as often, and/or you want to have the souvenir mug for the day and all eternity.

Bottom line: if you’re drinking more than 1-2 beers the difference in cost isn’t really that big, so don’t sweat it too much. The fine organizers of Oktoberfest have priced their beer quite fairly. And thinking too much about these sorts of things is probably detrimental to your mental health…but nothing a few lagers can’t fix. So relax, enjoy some good beer, indulge in some delightfully stinky German food, and celebrate one of Cincinnati’s great festivals. Prost!

-John (#13)

*It’s a curse that has ruined many a routine trip to the grocery store, leading my wife to find me staring at a shelf in aisle 9, reflecting on how the pricing structure of a particular brand’s cereal sizes just doesn’t make any sense. Wait, you thought it was me that is cursed? No, I fear my wife suffers the most.

We frequently get updates for our Tastings and Tappings Report after our regular 9:00 am publishing time. Any edited listing will have UPDATE at the beginning of the listing.

TASTINGS

● Everything’s d’ Vine Tasting is at 5:30 pm each week and costs $10 for beer and wine tastings. You can get just beer or just wine for $5.00. For this week’s tasting (9/19), the beers are New Belgium and Three Floyds Lips of Faith Series: Ommegang Scythe & Sickle, 5 Rabbit 5 Vulture, Goose Island Rambler IPA and Dogfish Head Punkin.

● Ludlow Wines – Saturday beer tasting is from 5:00-8:00 pm. The cost to taste four beers is $6.00 per person.

● Party Town – Friday Night Flights usually features six to eight beers each week and goes from 6:00 – 7:00 pm. For this week’s tasting (9/19), the beers are new arrivals from Victory, Uinta and more. The cost for the regular sample flights is $2.00. For $3, you can get a nine ounce pour of Heavy Seas GreatER Pumpkin (imperial pumpkin ale aged in bourbon barrels).

● Whole Foods Cincinnati – Cask & Cork: Beer and Wine every Friday from 5:00 to 7:00 pm. For $5, you get five sips and six delicious bites. Tickets sold until 6:30 pm.

Friday, Sept. 19th from 5:00 pm-12:00 am – Uberdrome at Moerlein Lager House
From Facebook:
“This year admission to the entire Uberdrome is free and open to the public, offering entertainment and atmosphere with German-style food prepared by the Moerlein Lager House. The menu includes Oktoberfest Rotisserie Chicken and Traditional German favorites along with freshly brewed Christian Moerlein crafted beers onsite. Paulaner original Munich Oktoberfest beers will also be available.”

Friday, Sept. 19th at 5:30 pm – Beer and Wine Tasting at Everything’s d’ Vine
$10 per person to taste five beers and four wines. $5 to taste just beer or just wine.

Friday, Sept. 12th from 6:30-11:00 pm – Cincy Beerfest On Fountain Square (And 5th Street Too)
Advance VIP tickets are $35 and advance VIP ticket holders are the only people who get access to 24 special “rare/expensive/hard to find” beers in the VIP area. All advance tickets are VIP Tickets. Includes admission, a souvenir five ounce mug, and 25 sampling tickets (each sample is a full five ounce pour). Day of tickets are $40. You can also buy pints for $5. Buy your tickets at http://www.beerfesttickets.com/eventperformances.asp?evt=43